Year 2 Day 198 Happy Birthday Mary Margaret!

Today is Mary Margaret’s birthday day. Yea! We wish to thank everyone who emailed, texted or called to wish her the very best on this special day. We also wish to thank those who sent e-cards to celebrate her day. These efforts were so very kind and thoughtful. It is really nice to be remembered on one’s birthday.

And, we also wish to extend a special thanks to those who contributed to her birthday fund, donating to the ACLU, in support of their legal efforts to reunite those immigrant kids who were taken from their parents. We both found that action taken by the Trump Administration to be so unforgivable, cruel, unnecessary and against the values that made this country great. It is one of the darker moments in American history and we are so appreciative of everyone supporting to stop it and reunite the kids with their parents. Thanks to your generosity, she exceeded her goal of $500. It will be well received and used by the ACLU.

To celebrate Mary Margaret’s birthday, we did two things that she loves to do and we miss doing so much since we stopped sailing. We first went to the closest thing we could find to a farmers’ market and then went to the beach where she spent the afternoon swimming. While during our sailing years, we discovered that many places we sailed to did not have supermarkets. Instead, one bought fruits and vegetables at an open farmers market where scores of canvas-covered stalls offered fresh-from-the-garden goodies. Mary Margaret loved to stop at each stall, talk to the vendors and inspect their goods. I trundled behind, helping to carry the bags of fresh goodies she negotiated for.

While we did not find an open-air market like that today, we did find a roadside farmer’s market nestled amongst the blueberry farms that are so common in this part of Michigan. We toyed with the idea of picking our own blueberries, something that we did when first married, but opted to just buy them already picked since they were so reasonably priced. We ended up with a 5-pound box of fresh blueberries for just $13. Whoo Hoo! Mary Margaret also selected a handful of yellow squash and zucchini.

This afternoon we returned to the beautiful beach at our campground but this time came armed with our towels and bathing suits. We discovered the wind was blowing a bit at the beach (15 or so knots) and the coast guard had issued small craft warnings. Small craft warnings are supposed to be issued when winds are predicted to be above 22 knots within the next 12 hours. Apparently, a storm was making its way toward us.

Also, the beach was flying a red no-swimming flag. This blew our minds since the swells on Lake Michigan were just in the 1 to 3-range and the surf rolling in was about the same height. It looked like a perfect day to go sailing to us and it made us think of how great it would be to have good ol’ Leu Cat here, dancing over the waves.

I guess everything is relative to what you are used to but what we saw looked just perfect to us for a good, long swim. Apparently, it looked the same way to most of the beach goers as they too were enjoying the water.

This was the first time since living on Leu Cat, which we left about a year ago, that we went swimming in a body of water. It was awesome! The water was “almost warm” but once you got in, it was perfect! Mary Margaret so enjoyed herself that her smile lasted the rest of the day and well into the night.

Our Past Life

If you would like to read about our 10-year adventure sailing around the world on our lovely sailboat, Leu Cat, CLICK HERE

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My Brother’s Are Explorers Too!

Dave’s Dad and Mom were very adventuresome and instilled the wanderlust into his soul. They did the same for his older Brother, Don, and his youngst brother, Del. Follow their adventures by clinking on Don’s blog CLICK HERE or Del’s website:CLICK HERE